Words: 72
Blocks: 31
Well this was just brutal - too many names, quotes, stuff before my time; then John sprinkles in a little vagueness*, and I am left with a snowy white grid of disappointment - almost the exact the same thing I said when I blogged his last puzzle, on St Patrick's Day. Not a terribly intimidating layout, with two 11's -
19A. Ones whose business is going down? : SCUBA DIVERS - My first thought was plumbers, but I was short some letters....lois, what were you thinking~!
52A. What excessive volume might do, facetiously : WAKE THE DEAD - clued as "line from a Quiet Riot" song, ( 3:30 ) and I would have gotten this one sooner
And two 10-letter climbers:
11D. Debunked claims that don't go away : ZOMBIE LIES - Never heard this phrase - anyone?
26D. "You Learn" singer : MORISSETTE - Alanis; this track is from her "Jagged Little Pill" album, a huge success; Guitar Center featured her "sessions" last night.
Now, I am not looking for a handout, Mr. Farmer, just a fighting chance ~!
onward....
ACROSS:
1. "__ & Son": "The Bullwinkle Show" feature involving morality tales* : AESOP - Never seen the Bullwinkle Show; I just know it was TV at one time....
6. Common 99-cent buy : APP - DAH~!! Stuck on "PEN", for some reason, totally out of the digital age; I do have an Android, but only 6 or 8 APP(lications)
9. Rubbernecked : GAZED - Had gaPed to start; did not help with the Zombies at all
14. Brand pitched by Bucky Beaver : IPANA - I do not know where I dredged this up from, but I did get it; toothpaste/beaver teeth, I can see that
15. Musical flourish : GRACE NOTE - JazzB probably knew this; I have seen it in some tabs
17. Printing error? : LIBEL
18. "Simply a patient wolf": Lana Turner* : GENTLEMAN - Very cute; I am a gentleman by this definition....
21. Crisper, e.g. : BIN - like in your fridge
22. Unlikely remedy : CURE-ALL
23. Utah's state flower, e.g. : LILY
24. Farm male : TOM
27. Craigslist condition : AS IS - not USED, not MINT
28. Unfriend? : FOE - I am not on Facebook; I thought this was a way to "take somebody off" your page....anyway....
29. Hit the roof : BLOW UP32. Hot stream : LAVA FLOW
36. '40s-'50s Cleveland Indians slugger : AL ROSEN - C.C., our host and baseball aficionado, if you would, please (C.C.: He spent his entire career with the Indians. I often confused him with Hank Greenberg when I started collecting baseball cards. Neither played during Yom Kippur, correct, Dennis/Husker Gary?)
38. Setting for some History Channel programs : WARTIME
39. One coming down : RAINDROP - not gonna get DF, but my mind was....not on rain
41. Like some airport parking : NOSE-IN - Tried "BY HOUR" - Bzzzzt~!!!
42. Caribbean music : SKA - HEY~! I got one~!
43. Novelist Hoag : TAMI - if Mr. Farmer says so - this author - anyone read some? Tell me more
46. Balkan Peninsula peak : OSSA
48. Game played with two decks : CANASTA - never played; I know Blackjack uses multiple decks, and we used to play WAR with more than one.
51. All-around vehicle, briefly : UTE - not ATV, SUV, CUV
56. Couple's interaction : TÊTE-À-TÊTE - Head to Head, in Frawnch - not really synonymous to me; I think of it as couples "banging" heads - but then again, I am divorced, so....
58. Restaurant seating option, perhaps : PATIO - not BOOTH
59. 1995 film based on an Elmore Leonard novel* : GET SHORTY - Great movie; had NO clue who wrote the book it was base on, of course.
61. 1970s-'80s Mantas, e.g. : OPELS
62. First airline to operate a transpolar route : SAS - well they live there; you'd think that's how they wanted to go~!
63. Slow on the uptake : DENSE - Yep, it's how I feel about my solving experience today....
DOWN:
1. Bugs : AILS - couldn't decide if this was the "IRKS" or "ANTS" variety - missed on both accounts
2. "Spartacus," for one : EPIC
3. "Black Narcissus" actor* : SABU - This guy; never heard of him, or the movie
4. Prelude to a historic turning point* : ONE B.C. - uh, well I would say so, since we are now living in A.D. 2012
5. Pacific island nation : PALAU - Survivor setting, 2005, and the winner was Fireman Tom Westman, from right here on Long Island~!
6. Team from College Station, Texas* : AGGIES - at this point, with two passes through the clues and nearly nothing filled other than the SW, I went to Google for this one
7. Finish on top : PREVAIL
8. Plywood cutter : PANEL SAW - ever gotten your CDX sheets cut to fit your car at Home Depot? That's a panel saw
9. Some nail applications : GELS - maybe the ladies got this one easier than I did
10. Hydrocarbon suffix : ANE - propANE, butANE, octANE
12. Big chunk of Christmas sales nowadays : E-TAIL - and great for my UPS Overtime, too~!!!
13. 2006 NASCAR Sprint Cup Rookie of the Year Hamlin : DENNY - can't talk about him; he drives for that OTHER E-tail company
16. Key not used alone : CTRL - yeah, OK, but shouldn't it have some clue as an abbr.?? - it does stand for CONTROL....maybe I'm just grouchy now (C.C.: It's just CTRL on my keyboard.)
20. Hamm's "Mad Men" role : DRAPER - Don't watch the show; do like him when he visits Conan (see the video clip; it's cute)
23. Some galleries : LOFTS
24. Way up a slope : T-BAR
25. It's a crock : OLLA
28. Game named for a king : FARO - oh, as in Pharaoh; still, it's French - the Wiki
30. Dahl entrepreneur : WONKA - Willy and his Chocolate Factory
31. Food stamp : U.S.Department of Agriculture
33. Get lost : VANISH
34. Neglect : OMIT
35. Proceed : WEND
37. Fate of a bad offer : NO TAKERS
40. Defense secretary after Gates : PANETTA - proper political names just kill me
44. Jolly Roger fliers : MATEYS - Arrrr~!!! me knews it was pirates, the Skull & Crossbones, but I needed ---EYS to get it....Tinbeni, pass the grog~!
46. Expenditure* : OUTGO - Outgo?? Really?? Ugh.
47. Be in hot water : STEEP - Like a tea bag
48. Opponent of Caesar : CATO
49. Halfhearted : TEPID
50. Bewildered, after "in" : A DAZE
52. Crib cries : WAHs
53. __ blue: color named for a school : ETON
54. Boosts : AIDS
55. Teaspoon, say : DOSE
57. Night sch. staple : ESL - English as a Second Language - the way this puzzle went, I think I better sign up for English as my FIRST language~!!!
Answer grid.
Splynter
59 comments:
Morning, all (and thanks for all the kind birthday wishes yesterday)!
Yep, this was a mostly challenging puzzle with one area that was utterly brutal (to me, at least).
Overall, I struggled with the proper names (don't watch Madmen and didn't know DRAPER, don't watch NASCAR and didn't know DENNY, don't care about baseball and didn't remember AL ROSEN despite him being in the grid before, had no idea who sang "You Learn", etc.).
I really had to work hard for other obscurities such as PANEL SAW (never heard of it) and I had CLEO instead of CATO for way too long. Plus, the cluing overall was just plain difficult.
I did manage to eventually work my way through most of the tough stuff, though, but ended up turfing it in the Middle East. ZOMBIE LIES was a complete unknown. I'm glad to hear it was John's seed entry, but it's not a phrase I've ever heard before. NOSE IN was another term I'm not familiar with, although I get what it means. Had LAVA and WAR but couldn't think of FLOW or TIME to go with them. And it never occurred to me that a gallery would be in a LOFT (I thought that was just where the artists lived/painted). In the end, I reset the skill level and just started guessing letters...
Good morning Splynter, C.C. et al.
Happy birthday, C.C.!!! I hope your day is really special.
.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.
Fun and entertaining write-up, Splynter. You are my Saturday hero!
I had the hardest time getting a foothold on this one. I had table SAW instead of PANEL SAW and GApED instead of GAZED in the north, and pinocle (sic) was my card game instead of CANASTA in the south. When I finally realized what 99 cents can buy nowadays, APP, the old V8 can got a huge dent.
Then there was the MORISETTE/AL ROSEN / WONKA trilogy, which could have been a Natick, but some vague memory cells started firing and let me WAG most of those to get it done.
I loved seeing ZOMBIE LIES (yes, I have heard pundits say this before) and WAKE THE DEAD. But my favorite one was the clue for GENTLEMAN: “Simply a patient wolf”.
Have a great day, everyone!
Rather a difficult Puzzle for me today. Have to disagree with splynter Izod does not make Aligator shirts they have always been from Lacoste Izod's logo is a Z with an I through the middle. Izod sold alligator shirts for Lacoste in the USA. But that agreement ended several years ago.
Wait, today's is C.C.'s birthday??? How in the world did I miss that?
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
got punked up top in the NW corner...only bullwinkle offshoot i could recall was peabody...never heard of sabu the actor, only the pro wrestler...that particular pacific island was a new one to me as well...was 100% convinced that ails was a word that would begin with a consonant, so that crippled any chances of triggering ipana, which i hadn't seen in a puzzle in a long time...nailed the rest...nice puzzle...very challenging
Happy Birthday dear C.C.!
Thanks once again for your bravery, Splynter! Mr. Farmer pretty well plowed me under on this.
I finally remembered AESOP--my kids used to watch Bullwinkel. Tami Hoag is one of my favorite authors. I have read Elmore Leonard, including GET SHORTY, but it took some perps to decide which book-based film came out in 1995.
My sister's friends played CANASTA in high school many long years ago. I sat in a few times. Got this.
The control key on my IMAC is spelled in full.
What kind of GELS are used on nails? New to me.
SABU died in 1963? Very obscure. And I have never sat on a restaurant PATIO. Even though I suspected TEPID and ETON, I was too DENSE to get that.
My cries from the crib were "mama".
For my taste this puzzle was just as uncool as the weather.
DNF. Gave up after 10 Googles. Then I saw the name and remembered never finish his.
When I saw DRAPER (sports), thought it was DR. APER.
As@PK said - obscure. Is that the theme?
Knew SABU only because my sister-in-law's sister married him during his fame. It was a marriage that did not last.
In Italian, FARO is a lighthouse.
Happy Birthday and many more dear fearless leader C.C.
Yes, the puzzle was rather torturous, with some of the clues bordering on the edge, but I did keep plugging along and finish.
I thought CURE ALL was not fairly clued, while it is unlikely they exist, a cure all would be great. The OPEL MANTA, really? On the other hand, I am old enough to remember SABU and in Florida there are many "ONLY NOSE IN" parking signs, because we only have rear license plates.
Hope you are doing something special C.C.
Can't say WBS. Know Danny. Currenty 8th in Sprint Car standings. BTW, Danica is 9th in Nationalwide standings. Sprint car drivers come over and drive in Nationwide races. To night from Sparta, KY.
Macy's still sell the alligators.
It's called the IZOD Indy Car Series. Block I and block Z.
Remember Al. Still have my Indian BB cap.
Pinochle played with two half deck
of cards.
eddy
Greetings, weekend warriors. Thank you, Splynter, for the valiant effort today.
A very happy birthday to you, C.C.!!! I hope you have special plans.
Yowza! I GAZED at this for a long time then like the proverbial climb to success, started at the bottom. Got Leon PANETTA since he has been much in the news lately.
In college I played CANASTA until I was in A DAZE. Later in life my friends loved pinochle.
ESL, of course! Already my class is half full for the coming semester.
As unlikely as it seems, AL ROSEN and Dan DRAPER seeped out from some deep cavity.
DENNY was a pure guess. And instead of GRACE NOTE I was searching for an Italian term and ZOMBIE LIES is totally unknown to me.
RAM was my first farm male but then OLLA cracked the code and I know Alana MORISSETTE by name only not her music.
Have a delightful Saturday, everyone! 113 degrees here today.
Finally, had to Ggle AESOP as I've never watched the Bullwinkle show.
I loved the cluing for SCUBA DIVERS!
Good morning, folks. Thank you, Mr. Farmer, for one tough Saturday puzzle. Thank you, Splynter, for a great review.
This one beat me up pretty bad.
Got the whole South first, after some struggling.
AL "Flip" ROSEN was easy. I was a Clevelend fan as a youth. 100 miles from Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and Cleveland, and just down the lake from Detroit, my family all liked Cleveland.
MORISSETTE was an unknown, but wagged it with a few perps.
MATEYS was tough for Jolly Roger fliers. Not sure a MATEY is always a pirate.
The North was another story.
IPANA was a gimmie. AESOP looked obvious and it fit. Those helped with that corner.
Had TABLE SAW for 8D for a while. In the East had REMOTE for Airport Parking. Had GAPED instead of GAZED for 9A. Those three really slowed me down.
After getting a little help I was able to finish. If I spent about six hours or so, I could have slogged through this, but not that time today.
Happy Birthday, C.C. Hope you have a nice celebration and many more.
See you tomorrow.
Abejo
Crashed and burned on this one.
First off, a very Happy Birthday to our fearless leader! C.C., I hope it's your best year yet.
And you're partially right about Al Rosen - he had stated that he would not play during Yom Kippur, but the Indians got knocked out before then.
Bitch of a puzzle; took a good forty minutes and several ink blots. Loved it.
Good morning:
Happy Birthday, CC, and best wishes for many, many more.
This was a toughie for me. Needed help with northwest but other areas of trouble were eventually solved either with perps or WAGs.
Kudos to Mr. Farmer for a cool challenge and thanks to Splynter for a cool recap.
Have a great Saturday all.
Hi All ~~
Whew! Quite a Saturday struggle. The NW corner was the last to fill and drove me crazy! SABU, PALAU, and LIBEL just wouldn't come to me. I walked away for a while and when I came back to it, I thought SABU seemed familiar - I tried it and the rest FINALLY fell in. Lots of erasures and missteps, but I enjoyed the challenge. Thank you, John Farmer, for a real workout.
Splynter - once again I applaud you. You do a fantastic job on these tough Saturdays!
~~ Somehow I don't think of rubber necking as gazing but I finally changed my GAPED to GAZED and was able to finish that section.
~~ ETON blue was a learning moment ~ had no idea.
~~ I just finished a TAMI Hoag novel - "Dust to Dust." ("Ashes" to Ashes" was before that) She writes mostly crime/suspense type stuff - I enjoy her work.
~~ I always think of Lucina with ESL.
Wishing you a very Happy Birthday, C.C. ~ hope your Twins can win for you today!
Hot and steamy here in CT ~ won't be straying from the AC ~~ enjoy the day!
Another hand up for ZOMBIELIES and problems with GAPED. Had POMBELLIES for a while, which made absolutely no sense. Otherwise, I knew a lot more of the obscure info than I deserved to, and got everything done except for the d*mn zombie thing. Now, I see that if I hadn't fixated on GAPED, I might have gotten to the Z eventually and doped it out.
But, I finally gave up in disgust -- too much to do after the mess left by Debby -- and came here, to The Fount of Knowledge. Thanks, Splynter.
Brutal but rewarding here too, Splynter. I know I got it all but not after great effort, garage sales and a couple of “honey do” projects. Little bits revealed themselves and then, voila, I was done. Anything worthwhile takes effort! Loved it!
Musings
-祝你生日快乐 C.C.!
-Big hold up was URBAN MYTHS which I so confidently put in at 11 Down! ZOMBIE LIES is not in my vocab. Also, TOM not RAM, GAPED before I GAPED, IRKed before I AILed, SAMOAn before PALAUn,
-ONE BC was a great fill along with BIN, CTRL, GENTLEMAN!
-Bullwinkle was one of those cartoons everyone could enjoy! Hop in the this machine to see again. Good lesson on Iran and Khomeini too!
-IPANA a gimme!
-Every malady has a CUREALL somewhere on cable TV
-Agree with Dennis on AL. Sandy Koufax, of course, did not pitch on Yom Kippur, C.C.
-Old joke - shortest book ever printed Jewish Sports Stars
-SIL called History Channel the Hitler Channel
-A TÊTE-À-TÊTE was always a little more secret and illicit to me
-A satellite in a POLAR orbit can see every spot on Earth.
-inCOME/outGO
-I can parallel park and go NOSE IN if I have to.
Holy cow! Hand up for brutal! but really entertaining once I read Splynter's commentary.
He was right; GELS was the first of two answers I filled in without blog help. Thanks to my mystery addiction, I also got TAMI. That was about it.
DIdn't know that a MATEY could be a ship as well as a sailor/pirate. I too wanted GAPED instead of GAZED, which didn't make much difference, since I was never gonna get ZOMBIELIES.
Happy birthday, C.C. Thanks again for starting this wonderful site! Hope you don't get nasty weather today. We woke up to thunderstorms, so I imagine they are on the way over to you.
Brutal but rewarding here too, Splynter. I know I got it all but not after great effort, garage sales and a couple of “honey do” projects. Little bits revealed themselves and then, voila, I was done. Anything worthwhile takes effort! Loved it!
Musings
-祝你生日快乐 C.C.!
-Big hold up was URBAN MYTHS which I so confidently put in at 11 Down! ZOMBIE LIES is not in my vocab. Also, TOM not RAM, GAPED before I GAPED, IRKed before I AILed, SAMOAn before PALAUn,
-ONE BC was a great fill along with BIN, CTRL, GENTLEMAN!
-Bullwinkle was one of those cartoons everyone could enjoy! Hop in the this machine to see again. Good lesson on Iran and Khomeini too!
-IPANA a gimme from my TV youth. What great movie had this commercial on during a slumber party?
-Every malady has a CUREALL somewhere on cable TV
-Agree with Dennis on AL. Sandy Koufax, of course, did not pitch on Yom Kippur.
-SIL called History Channel the Hitler Channel before Pawn Stars, American Pickers, et al
-A TÊTE-À-TÊTE always seemed a little more secret and illicit to me
-A satellite in a POLAR orbit can see every spot on Earth.
-inCOME/outGO
-I can parallel park and not just go NOSE IN if I have to.
Hello everybody. I got no pleasure from this puzzle at all. In fact, all I felt was frustration and annoyance. It really pissed me off. I mean, I had to look up a lot of stuff, and even after looking up and filling in the answers, some of which were rather long (such as MORISSETTE) and therefore hopefully helpful, I *still* got nowhere. I quit with approximately 50% of the puzzle still blank. This one beat my ass all to heck. Best wishes to you all.
Good morning everyone. Good write-up, Splynter.
Happy Birthday C.C. Hoch soll Sie leben.
WEES. Pretty tough one. Had to resort to some red letter help, particularly in the North, but did not have to use Google. Wanted to 'fill in all the blanks' for the learning experience. 41a, Never heard of NOSE IN associated with airport parking protocol. Liked 4d, ONE BC. The mis-directional and obscure cluing is to be expected on a Saturday. Splynter, thanks for explaining the PANEL SAW. I think TÊTE-À-TÊTE was clued correctly.
Have a great day.
To Spitzboov: From yesterday. I worked in Jamestown, NY, twice. There are so many Swedes in Jamestown the Swedish Embassy has a consulate there, or did when I was there in the mid 70's. Half the phone book is Johnson. Most of the downtown streets are still brick. The biggest club in town is the Vikings. Many of my relatives are from the other end of Lake Chautauqua, Mayville. Small world.
Abejo
In too confess to concession. I went on a Google spree with about 75% complete and did manage to fill it all correctly. But not with any shred of dignity remaining. Many stumbling blocks, but that P in lieu of Z in gazed was the worst. Nearly impossible to make that transition. Not the most fun I've had, but I didn't find it a waste of time either.
Happy B-Day CC.
Happy Birthday C.C.
A belated Happy Birthday to Barry G. (hope it was a Red Letter Day!)
This reminded me of the Kidney Stone "sand" I passed yesterday. UGH!!!
DNF ... would have been an Ink-Blot except for all the squares left blank.
First pass, with 1-A being AESOP, 14-A being IPANA, 17-A being LIBEL, I thought I had a chance.
OSSA & CANASTA were other gimmies.
But I had SUV for UTE and TWA for SAS and wished I had gotten into some grog because MATEYS was never going appear.
Well today the International timekeepers are giving us a "leap-second".
Maybe I'll finally finish War-and-Peace.
Actually, this messes things up a-lot.
I'll have to adjust my Sunset 'toast' appropriately.
Cheers !!!
Brutal, brutal, brutal. I'm with Jayce 12:19 on this one. Never thought I'd wish for a tough Silkie, but that would have been a dream this morning.
So I'll have to content myself with just wishing C.C. a totally terrific and wonderful birthday. We owe you so much on this blog--so please accept a gift of delighted gratitude!
Hello again~!
Argh~! There is a note in my computer from last year about C.C.'s Birthday, and I still missed it.
Happy B-day C.C.~!
I have also been told that Lacoste, not Izod, was the alligator part of the company, and even then it was not an alligator, but a crocodile - shows how completely un-hip I was - and still am....
Splynter
Gazed instead of gaped? C'mon, that is just no good. Crash on the highway causes a "gazers block?" Huh?
WEES. Pombielies??? HAHAHAHAHA Try using that in a sentence.
The end.
Hello Puzzlers -
Yep, this'n was hard all right. Had to settle for Goog help to get AL ROSEN to finish the west. Technical DNF.
Back from Eire and totally zonked. Piles of laundry, plus tall grass, to face - all without the help of Guinness.
At least there was Splynter to clear the cobwebs. Happy Birthday C.C.!
Like most of you I had not heard of Zombie Lies although it makes sense that it is a notion that won't die. Unfortunately, Urban Myths is also 10 letters and I was convinced it was right which made it tough until I finally caved in and acknowledged Lava Flow and Wartime. Good tough puzzle today!
Wowee! All your commentary today is better than Comedy Central! Too funny!
Tinbeni:
A nonosecond to finish War and Peace?? LOL
GarlicGal:
Your HAHAHAHAHA had me in a belly laugh.
As for mine, I believe the blog phantom is acting again. The last two sentences were originally farther up. Who moved them??
Now it's time to go for a pedi and fill though I prefer acrylic nails to GEL.
Dudley: Are you the guy on the left who crashed the wedding while in Ireland?
Happy birthday, C.C.! I enjoyed your interview more than the puzzle. I'm not a themeless fan and this was harder than most. Well-done but not much fun for me because of my lack of success. I would have been really lost without red letters. I respect the quality of the construction and I'm sure I would enjoy one of John's themed puzzles much more. I wonder where in the LA area he lives? Maybe he's a neighbor?
Lucina @1:45
re: "A nonosecond to finish War and Peace??"
Whoa ... I'm talking about ONE-WHOLE-LEAP-SECOND is being added !!!
With 7 billion+ souls each getting this ONE-WHOLE-LEAP-SECOND, it equates to 81,000 days, or 222 years of added human productivity.
If we work together we can get a-lot done.
I may even finish the Wash/Wax job on my Honda CR-Z, too.
This is "time" that can't be wasted!!!
Cheers!!!
Tin, you don't say exactly when this leap-second is being added. I'm gonna work on the assumption it's right now! I just spent it having a refreshing slug of a cold fermented beverage. time well spent.
I'm kinda excited. I just added to my bird sightings out here at Airy Acres. My first Cattle Egret. He's camera shy though. Can't get much more than little white blob with my Nikon.
This is the kind of puzzle I really enjoy -- easy to medium Fridayish NYT -- doable w/o Googles and red ink, and with lots of writeovers to keep you thinking.
IMO, you have to be familiar with current crosswordese like OLLA, OSSA, TBAR, Sego -> LILY, and Dahl -> WONKA in order to complete a puzzle like this. Knowing adit, ewer, and inee won't cut it anymore.
Had ZOMBIELIke for a long time. Couldn't figure out what was wrong, but NO SkIN just didn't look right.
Love the GENTLEMAN clue... the high point of the puzzle. Also enjoyed the Farmer interview. Hand up for tableSAW. AESOP just seemed right, but didn't know SABU, (along with most of the other porper names), and IPANA was an oldies gimme, which gave me the NW.
Happy B-Day CC.
-Ipana commercial from Grease
-I’m spending my leap second thinking about the Kardashians. Well, maybe half of it.
-Off to Red Lobster with MIL and Joann
Gary, my parents turned me onto Red Lobster years ago when they would come out to visit. They really liked going there. They would always order a lunch portion instead of a dinner portion; smaller and cheaper. Those cheesy biscuits? are really good. In their memory, I went there again recently. It was still good though always seems to to be crowded. I've never had anything there that I didn't like.
Hola Everyone, I had a terrible time with this puzzle. I tried, then tried again, and only had about 1/3 filled in. Thanks to Splynter for the rest of the answers. My experience was much the same as Barry's and HeartRx's. Some of the same miscues and unknowns. But unlike them, I gave up and didn't finish.
I wanted to make sure to say:
HBDTY,HBDTY, HBD Dear C.C. HBDTY and many, many more!!
Have a lovely weekend everyone.
Avg Joe, lucky you to have a cattle egret. In the tree just outside our side door, a mockingbird family has set up shop. Unfortunately, that is the door that we always use to let the cats out. So you think the cats are terrorizing the mockingbird?
Ah so, grasshopper, you would be wrong! The cats are terrified of the mockingbird, because it is so aggressive in defending its nest!! They will sit in the door for five minutes just scoping out the territory before they will venture a paw over the threshold!
Very tough puzzle. Glad to know that all you experts struggle sometimes as well.
I'll look forward to Monday and Tuesday.
- New Rookie
Marti, Mockers are pretty aggressive birds. Not as obnoxious as Blue Jays, but close. We've had them the last few years, but not yet this summer. I miss them.
Yesterday I saw a seagull sitting on the peak of my deck roof. First time for that when there was no plowing taking place. I wonder what tomorrow will bring.
This puzzle was a total loss for us. But I want to wish CC a very Happy Birthday and a good ear to come.
Kazie, I tried to e-mail you about your phone. the e-mail came back undeliverable. Could you send me an e-mail with your current address, please?
Dot
I proofed my comment and still missed 'ear'. That's year.
Dot
I raised a baby mockingbird when it fell out of its nest. It was a very rewarding experience.
I just got back from a short bike ride and a macchiato. It was a struggle finding a place to park on this pretty summer weekend day.
Here a cute video of a very clever little mouse. MOUSE
Bill G. I bet that mouse could kick my cat's a** any day on that course...
Heartrx: We once had to wave a broom over our heads to get to our cars because of nesting, mocking birds. We called the fire dept. first and told them we were prisoners in our own home. They just laughed and said, "We`ve NEVER had a call like THIS before!"
Re Red Lobster: The garlic shrimp pasta is the best thing there...be sure to ask for extra sauce (then dip those biscuits in what`s left!)
BTW, the USNO clock wouldn`t load a good portion of the day...probably from adding that wayward second!
DENNY Hamlin is leading the NASCAR race in Kentucky right now.
Good evening Splynter, C.C. et al,
This was a wallapaloosa for moi. Had some good fill the 1st go around: scuba divers, ipana, lava flow, Tami, canasta, Palau,...but it didn't seem to help much on my subsequent roundS. :(
gels: every 3 weeks I get a gel treatment for my French manicure. Can even garden (sans gloves) with them.So much better to look at than age spots and bulging veins.
apps: I always pay $2.99.
Had to stop by to wish you a HAPPY BIRTHDAY, C.C.I will always vodka you.
Garlic Gal, your humor is delightful!
Bill, enjoyed the Olympic mouse run.
Husker, gotta love those cheesy biscuits...yum.
C.C. ~~ So happy your Twins won a double-header for your birthday! :-)
Late to the party today, but had to look in the wish C.C. a happy birthday! Sorry it wasn't sooner. By now you are probably out celebrating in style!
I spent a majority of the day working on correcting mailing addresses and clearing up mysteries in preparation for the next DKG newsletter.
I did try the puzzle, but only ended up with 50 tiles correct before having to admit defeat and come here to see what it was all about. Nothing anywhere seemed to be in my wheelhouse at all today.
...Had to look in TO wish C.C. a HB today!
Bonnie and Jordan took a few days to head north along the coast on a road trip to Monterey. This photo is along the 17-mile drive near Carmel. It has a nice feel to it I think. Jordan is finally at the stage where he makes an effort to have a nice smile in a photograph. (Click on the photo for a slightly bigger image.) Bonnie and Jordan
Just had to wish my Hero(ine) a happy birthday. Jimbo
JIMBO, great to see you -- hope things are well with you again.
Don't be a stranger.
Bill G: Did you like my answer to the factorial problem?
fermatime, looks like you are finally showing your true self.
CC, do you have twins?
Finally had to come in for some stumpers. I actually liked this very much, ie., NOSE IN, TETE A TETE, WAKE THE DEAD,loved RAINDROP and GENTLEMAN..never heard that, wish I had said it! (easy to figure out, ha ha) I kept changing the NE corner, couldn't get ZOMBIE LIES and didn't know GRACE NOTE. Still it was a fun puzzle.
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